MEDICAL EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20604, 1 July 1930, Page 14

MEDICAL EDUCATION.

POSITION IN AMERICA.

BENEFITS FROM ENDOWMENTS. HIGHER STANDARD FOLLOWS. [IIY TEI.EGIiAOT. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] \V ELL IN G TON, Monday. Great changes have occurred in the medical profession in tho United States, said Dr. Evarts Graham, who arrived in Wellington by the Makura. Dr. Graham, who is professor of surgery at the Washington University school of medicine, St. Louis, is on his way to Melbourne to give a series of post-graduate lectures undor the auspices of tho British Medical Association. "Tlicro has been a great ehango in medical education in America in the hist 15 or 20 years," said l)r. Graham. "This is due very largely to the work of the Rockefeller Foundation, which has picked out certain medical schools in strategic places and financed them heavily. This lias enabled tho better medical schools to have more full-time men on their staffs—men who are not engaged in private practice, but who dovoto themselves to teaching and medical research.

' This has had an extremely beneficial effect, not only upon tho medical profession, but upon tho whole community, because tho medical schools of America are, turning out better doctors than they ever did before." There was a tremendous demand to enter tho medical schools in tho United States, said Dr. Graham. The result was the universities were able to exercise tho selection of the most qualified men. Most

doctors in the States were university graduates and after graduating they gained further training while resident at a hospital for at least a year. Women were not entering the field of medicino in tho United Stales in such numbers as they did in tho British Isien. It was difficult for them to find practices, apart from such positions as school doctors. Women comprised only about 5 percent. of tho gtudents in llto medical schools.